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The evolution continues. It's not merely the drivers to which we'll return momentarily. Everything to do with detailing out a loudspeaker to convey its all-around luxury ambitions has improved much since my older XS Series models. The new metal plinth sits on thoughtful rubber footers to make no floor marks from when the speaker is first unpacked to when it is finally walked into position. Once there, the four hefty gold cap nuts unscrew to bolt instead into the cylindrical couplers which receive the very long, very sharp spikes. All final leveling is done from the top as the speaker is slowly lifted off its protective footers. C'est l'engineering at its user friendly best. Merci bien!
Speaking of which, the central adjustable 'master coupler' in the front has its floor protector attached. You needn't lean back the speaker to insert it after the fact. The biwire binding post nuts not merely mirror the speaker's bowing cross section -- hats off to the industrial designers -- but are chunky sports for easy hand tightening. Minor demerits go to the stock jumper bridges however. Replace them tooth sweet with short cables for max performance if not discrete biwires. The silly black and red plastic inserts only defy banana insertion momentarily. EU legislators in Brussels require them for conformity with their inane safety regulations but anti-authoritarian audiophiles may safely remove them.


Thumbs up again for the spacious and attractive business end accommodations. The real estate there should satisfy even grotesque cable pythons. Comprehensive engineering must always include practical provisions for the real world. Here it continues with the orange covers which the more fastidious could continue to use as dust traps past the obvious transit protection. Should you listen topless, the grills couple magnetically. They come off without broken plastic standoffs or unsightly baffle holes and re-attach just as easily.

Branding experts always insist on redundant logofication. The design people meanwhile prefer a slash & burn approach to keep things elegant and quiet. The Cello sports many a quite inconspicuous triangle motif to serve the brand message but refuses to turn garish Vegas billboard. There are engraved logos on the driver baskets and terminal surround for example but they add to rather than distract from class. The Cello walks the line bien sure.


This welcome concern over tasteful detailing continues with what's visible of the drivers. The two-tone silver/black motif is consistent, the ubiquitous need for fixing bolts has been cleverly transformed into a design statement and the radial dispersion indentations in the ring surrounding the tweeter horn are visually mirrored by the clock markers in the port.


It's very audiophiliac to disdain comprehensive design cues by insisting that only the sound matters. It's precisely that narrow thinking and subsequent support of those lazy enough to cater to it that has given rise to many of the monstrosities which today pervade the hifi market. Had our industry taken more lessons from Bang & Olufsen and Apple, we'd perhaps not be as out of touch with the generalized populace as we've allowed ourselves to get.


Not only is there nothing wrong with trying to look as attractive as possible while fulfilling all the form-follows-function demands the acoustic engineers insist are mandatory; customers should most vocally insist on it and stop buying ugly hifi. Notions on what's attractive with a sound appliance diverge of course. Still, there's enough consensus purely on looks on what constitutes automobiles of universally desirable appeal that it's surely possible to practice more equally desirable appeal also in hifi.


All this by way of reiterating that for a box speaker, Triangle has done a fantastic job in this department and deserves les kudos. While still covering those bases, further goodies include two -- naturally branded -- pairs of cotton gloves which are anything but Chinesy redundancy with gloss lacquers; and a tri-lingual (French, English, German) spiral-bound full-color Magellan Series brochure with exploded drawings of enclosures and transducers, tech talk on the drivers, RPC™ regulated phase crossover and DPS™ dynamic pulse system, setup tips on positioning and comprehensive specs on each model in the family. One also gets a stamped quality control check list that warrants performance of frequency response, impedance curve, polarity and listening tests as well as inclusion of the owner's manual, accessories and protective grills.


Clearly Triangle Electroacoustique is a mature concern today and the presentation from packaging to physical appearance and design substance bear it out. The Cello's enclosure is internally braced by a top-to-bottom window pane divider which itself is subdivided by several stories worth of cross braces.


The TZ2900 tweeter's horn is the end result of 40 different shapes and has been optimized for broad dispersion, i.e. reduced directivity or diminished beaming above 15kHz. A "counter cap" with a Titanium duct and absorptive liner has been added to the motor to "reduce reflections and limit distortion in the tweeter's lower operating range". Just as for the horn flare geometry, computer modeling was employed to arrive at the precise shape and size of the phase plug at the center of the tweeter membrane.


The T16PG110oc midrange incorporates new research into suspension technologies to adopt latex-impregnated textile fibers formed into a twin sine-wave or 'S' shape. This is claimed to have limited driver resonance modes up to 1,000Hz. The polypropylene nose or phase plug meanwhile works to counteract vortex effects but adds driver damping. Thermal dissipation for increased power handling under reduced distortion has been improved by a claimed 10% with a heat-dissipating ring behind the motor yoke.


The design brief for the woofer asked for high clarity between 28 - 35Hz and combines a 4-layer voice with a +/- 7mm linear displacement and better than 200-watt power handling RMS per driver. The terminal block has been redesigned for better energy transfer with the hookup wiring. The earlier RPC™ term relates to impedance-compensated networks that provide "less phase distortion and more uniform directivity" and use low-inductance ceramic resistors, polypropylene caps and low-gauge inductors. DPS™ is Triangle speak for the bipolar diffusion of the Grand Concert through Quatuor models which add rear-firing drivers to not apply to the Cello under review. Even the technical documentation included with the speakers is more than a cut above to make up for Triangle's still below-par website which the company admits to and plans to address shortly.

€7,700 make the Cello an expensive speaker but it should be clear that everything prior to listening turned out perfectly commensurate with the bill. It's in fact quite beyond what a goodly number of competitors consider good enough. Shoppers really ought to get pickier and more demanding. Just say no.

As post visuals concluded, Triangle's Cello seems peculiarly non-peculiar on the mental map of French speakers and popular expectations. Its modern looks are well adapted to cohabitation with normal folks and the high-gloss white in particular is a real head turner. It isn't remotely as fussy as black. The above images weren't doctored and the speakers stood close to furniture which with black would show massive distracting reflections. White also seems to subjectively shrink size. Suffice it say that my wife gave the Cello very high marks on its cosmetics. Like most women, she hates big boxy speakers by design. The Cello fulfills its non-square mission well. Sonics next.